Philadelphia Magazine profiles Helen Gym in its January 2014 issue: “Relentless, whip-smart, meticulously prepared and utterly fearless, Gym—a private citizen who works without the heft of any meaningful institutional support—has managed to build herself one of the city’s largest bully pulpits.”

The New York Times puts Philadelphia’s Doomsday scenario on its front page and featured Parents United’s Leslie Tyler, Tomika Anglin and Helen Gym. Aug. 15, 2013

Related: New York Times listed Helen Gym as its Quote of the Day:“The concept is just jaw-dropping. Nobody is talking about what it takes to get a child educated. It’s just about what the lowest number is needed to get the bare minimum. That’s what we’re talking about here: the deliberate starvation of one of the nation’s biggest school districts.”

Op-Eds

(Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 24, 2013)

Helen Gym’s post on the White House Champions of Change blog: “The ‘public good’ is not a dirty word: Rebuilding our collective responsibility.” I’ve learned that our public spaces, our communities and our schools are not just places that exist in stasis. We have to learn to fight to preserve these spaces, to uplift them and to pass down the lessons of preservation and community to our children and our fellow neighbors.

Robin Roberts is cited in this Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed in support of the Opt Out Philly movement: “But if enough parents follow Roberts’ example, maybe Gov. Corbett and the legislature will make it a higher priority to increase funding not just for Philadelphia, but for schools across the state.” Mar. 26, 2014

Helen Gym is a featured commentator for the PDK Gallup Poll on public attitudes toward public schools, Aug. 2013

Interviews

“But there’s also a real need to humanize the dialogue around how we talk about poverty, cities and schools. The language we’re using these days is punishing and cruel. Parents are uniquely poised to ensure the mentality around our children and our schools must come through a framework of human dignity, equity, justice and love for our children and those who care for them.”

“The Rick Smith Show” features Rebecca Poyourow talking about why public schools matter for her and her children, May 24, 2012.

Videos

Parents United partnered with Media Mobilizing Project to produce a video series with PFT president Jerry Jordan, “Revival from the Roots.” Part I interviews parents, students and staff throughout West Philadelphia. “We need to see our schools as places of hope and possibility,” says Helen Gym.

Part 2 in our “Revival from the Roots” series focuses on Steel Elementary school in the midst of an attempted charter takeover.

Gerald Wright is featured in this Real News Network segment on the Doomsday budget

“The change from Nowak to Degnan isn’t simply a change from pugnacious and controversial to buttoned-down and managerial. The importance is going to be measured in terms of how much the foundation chooses to engage in top-down though behind-the-scenes social engineering around its grantmaking priorities, specifically about public education in Philadelphia, versus opting to respond to the communities that erupted against the foundation’s 2011 and 2012 engagement in remaking public education in the city.”

“We’ve burned through countless dollars chasing after the obsessions and frivolities of this so called “education reform” movement – expensive consultancies, high stakes testing, new standards and curricula, Renaissance schools. We’ve become so obsessed with the structure and management of education that we’ve completely forgotten about the substance and practice of it.” – Helen Gym

Rebecca Poyourow on the “Rick Smith Show” talking about the start of school and the District’s doomsday budget. Listen here. Aug. 8, 2013.

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